Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro called on his nation’s military leaders Tuesday to prepare for war against the U.S. days after the Trump administration banned Venezuelan officials from entering the nation.

“We have been shamelessly threatened by the most criminal empire that ever existed and we have the obligation to prepare ourselves to guarantee peace,” said Maduro, who wore a green uniform and a military hat as he spoke with his army top brass during a military exercise involving tanks and missiles. “We need to have rifles, missiles and well-oiled tanks at the ready….to defend every inch of the territory if needs be,” he added.
The Trump administration has taken a hard stance against Maduro’s regime by banning money lending to Venezuela’s government or its state oil company PDVSA, and passing sanctions against Maduro and his top officials.

Maduro referenced the sanctions during his speech at the military base. As he spoke, Russian military plans flew in the sky as part of the training exercise, Agence France-Presse reported.
“The future of humanity cannot be the world of illegal sanctions, of economic persecution,” Maduro said.

It’s unlikely Maduro has the manpower to stand up to the U.S., which has a much larger military. Maduro has maintained power in Venezuela despite mounting political and economic crises that has seen months of violent, anti-government demonstrations across the South American nation. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino has backed Maduro during the upheaval, but some critics have begun a whisper campaign suggesting that the military could break away and support a coup against the president, Herbert Garcia, a former senior army general and minister, told Reuters in August. There have been three attempted military coups in Venezuela since 1992.

Russia has defended Maduro in recent months, going so far as to accuse Trump of preparing for an invasion of Caracas. “We are strongly against unilateral sanctions against sovereign states,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in August. “We will carefully analyze the implications of the sanctions imposed by the United States, and their possible effect on the interests of Russia and Russian businesses. We can already say that they will not affect our willingness to expand and strengthen cooperation with the friendly nation of Venezuela and its people.”

President Donald Trump directed his penchant for insulting world leaders toward Venezuela during a United Nations speech earlier this month. He said Washington could intervene in Venezuela to help its citizens “recover their country”
“We cannot stand by and watch,” he said.

Maduro oversaw a disputed election earlier this year to muzzle the elected national assembly by creating “constituent assembly” in its place.

Hey – we’ve already got us a war brewing over in NK, and now we learn the Soviets [ooops] Russians are in our back yard with weapon systems on display, supporting a South American nation where the Defense Minister’s first name is Vladimir. What’s to go wrong? We can handle two major fronts in a wartime scenario easily — oh, wait — that was PRE-Obama’s military. The squeeze on the United States from both without and from within is beyond just palpable.

I’m going to read the Mainstream Media now before I go to bed, and relax. There I can learn that all we need to do is impeach the sitting President on whatever charges Nancy Pelosi chooses, staff (or is that “stuff?”) Congress with a Democrat majority next year while leaving plenty of the current crop of Republicans, and we’ll be just fine. Long live the revolution. [sarc/OFF obviously]

GS
"Ye hear of wars in far countries, and you say that there will soon be great wars in far countries, but ye know not the hearts of men in your own land."

GS, no need to turn off sarcasm. Putin will keep Maduro’s boot on Venezuela’s neck, as long as Russia gets their oil, and is allowed to build military bases. They’ll be operational long before we complete a perfect reconstruction of every last hospital, trinket shop, liquor store, shack, shed, doghouse, road, dam, and power line in Puerto Rico, to latest code, at our expense (since Maria wasn’t THEIR fault, and US media is already blaming it on Trump)